


The Administration of Narnian Justice

by Narniacsunite (Melsheartsthings)



Series: The Just King Records [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: "He who passes the sentence should swing the sword", Character Study, Edmund is the Just for a reason folks, Execution, Gen, King Edmund the Just - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 14:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16599668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melsheartsthings/pseuds/Narniacsunite
Summary: Edmund, justice and the  execution of a painful duty. “He who passes the sentence should swing the sword.” As Chief Justice of Narnia, Edmund has many duties, but his least favourite is that of executioner of traitors to his realm.  He is not the kind of man who can pass the duty of being executioner off to anyone else, not even General Orieus."This was the part of being Narnia’s Chief Justice that Edmund hated the absolute  most: the part where the sentence of the convicted party was carried out.  However, it was also a part he insisted on doing himself as he felt that “the one who passes the sentence should swing the sword” and take the responsibility of ending the life of someone condemned to death by Narnia’s Judicial  system. "





	The Administration of Narnian Justice

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to a Self given prompt: Chronicles of Narnia, Edmund Pevensive, “He who passes the sentence should swing the sword." -Eddard “Ned” Stark, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.

This was the part of being Narnia’s Chief Justice that Edmund hated the absolute most: the part where the sentence of the convicted party was carried out. However, it was also a part he insisted on doing himself as he felt that **_“the one who passes the sentence should swing the sword”_ **and take the responsibility of ending the life of someone condemned to death by Narnia’s Judicial system. He took a deep breath and then checked both of his sword belts. It was almost time to go out from the antechamber into the courtyard to assume the role of Narnia’s official Executioner as it was appended to his role of Narnia’s Chief Justice. The executioner was not a role he enjoyed but it was a necessary one at times. The first time he’d had to perform it, the finality of what he’d just done had brought him to his knees in the antechamber just off the courtyard they used for these executions afterwards, shaking and retching and crying. He’d managed to get past that sort of reaction but it had taken a few years to reach the point he was at now, where he got quiet in the antechamber beforehand and then left court for the rest of the day, and usually the next 24 to 48 hours following the day of an execution, instead taking Phillip out for a ride out to his manor horse with only his personal servants and half the regiment of soldiers who’d sworn themselves to him upon being pardoned after The Court of Justice had discovered that they’d only served Jadis, the Witch-Queen, out of fear for their families’ safety and lives and in an attempt to protect them had joined up with her forces but had never really believed in her or her cause. Just before he stepped out into the execution courtyard, Edmund whispered a prayer to Aslan, “Aslan, please let my aim be swift and true. And may this act of justice as laid down by the Ancient Kings at your direction be pleasing unto you. Guide my blade and steady my head. Glory and mercy and justice and power be to you, the only truly wise King, oh great Lion.” He whispered this same prayer every time he presided over an execution. He whispered a similar prayer, which focused on giving fair trials before he presided over trials, no matter how many days the trial took to complete. Every morning of a trial before re-opening the formal Court of Justice of Narnia, Edmund whispered his 'pre-trial prayer' as he whispered his 'pre-execution prayer' before each and every execution he performed. Then Edmund took a deep breath, steeled his expression into the one his siblings privately called his “Chief Justice and Executioner!Face” and muttered, “'He who passes the sentence should swing the sword.' As it is written, so shall it be, for as long as I serve as Chief Justice and Executioner of Narnia.”

And with that, Edmund exited the antechamer and entered the courtyard of execution. He took a deep breath, rested his hand on the hilt of one of his favorite twin swords, Ekinwynae at his right hip, a mirror to Kinnet on his left, in preparation for his next actions, and asked, “Do you,  Torrin, Black Dwarf, and Condemned Traitor against Narnia, have any last words before your sentence is carried out?” as was the re-established tradition to allow the condemned prisoner to have a few last words and as was their right.

 

Torrin’s last words were as so many of Jadis’s loyal forces’ last words were, curses upon him, his sisters, his brother and most of all Aslan, topped off with the promise that Jadis would return and destroy them all, words that Edmund has heard countless times before in countless variations and will hear countless times yet (as they sort out those who followed the Witch-Queen Jadis out of fear for their families from those who followed her because they believed in her cause and considered her the rightful queen of Narnia), in these still early years of their reign, “I curse you, _your majesty_ , and your siblings. and I most of all curse with everything i have the name of Aslan. May the stars fall soon and end your reign and may my Queen, Jadis return and destroy you all ere long.” When Torrin finally fell silent, Edmund nodded to the guards standing just behind Torrin who then stepped forward to blindfold the condemned dwarf and bind his hands behind his back then they pushed him into a kneeling position in front of Edmund. “May you be judged by the Great Lion according to your actions, Torrin, as we here have judged and acted according to the law of our Realm!” he spoke the words as he drew Ekinwynae from its’ scabbard and swung the sword in a clean, straight, forward moving arc that would cleave Torrin’s head from his neck.

 

The sound of metal meeting bone would always be a sound that sickened Edmund inside but he held that feeling pushed way down as he executed his duty. Torrin was a traitor for treachery’s sake, one who’d allied with the witch who’d used her powerful dark magic to encase Narnia in the grip of her magically created hundred year winter spell and ruled with an iron grasp on the Narnians’ throats, and Torrin had served her willingly, and that could not be forgiven. It was unthinkable that someone who had not been taken in by her magics as Edmund had been (and thus had been blinded by them for quite some time) or who was not only serving her to protect their family could think to beg for mercy during their trial as Torrin had, and thus this was the mercy that Narnia’s Justice system was meteing out to Torrin, a quick death by beheading instead of the even more slow and agonising death by burning, as was Narnia’s other method of execution, though that was still a very public occasion. Instead Torrin was granted death by beheading, still a very public traitor’s death, but one in which the executioner was well known to have a steady hand and a quick swing, as the executioner in these cases was the Chief Justice of Narnia himself, Edmund, King of Narnia called the Just, the Duke of Lantern Waste, Count of the Western Marches, Sir Edmund of the How, Knight of the Noble Order of the Stone Table, Lord of the Western Woods. He was well known for his sense of justice and his fairness and his insistence on the proper application of justice and on properly following the laws and protocols of the Realm. And the execution of traitors is something he insists on having as part of his remit as Narnia’s Chief Justice. He believed that the person who passed the sentence should be the one who swung the sword to execute the condemned prisoner.

 

This was not just Edmund's personal belief but one which he had picked up from the Court of Justice records of an earlier Age, well before Jadis, it was a saying and belief that was repeated over and over again in these records, going back to the earliest known King of Narnia, Frank I, the very first King of the realm. Those records were very hard to read, but Edmund had spent hours pouring over all the old Court of Justice records to familiarize himself with how Narnia's Justice system and Court of Justice was supposed to work, as opposed to how Jadis' justice system worked, or rather her injustice system, if Edmund was honest about it.

 

 ** _Her_ **system had worked on the basis that if She said you were guilty of a crime, you got turned into a statue, no defense permitted or allowed for, no trial, nothing but her using her wicked wand and magic to make you a statue. That was not justice, not by any measure at all. It was injustice, plain and simple. That was all it was.

 

Even now, Edmund would spend every spare moment he could beg, borrow or steal going over the old records and creating the Chief Justice's record for their reign, recording the verdicts of every trial, and the sentence and the date upon which the sentence was carried out. He also recorded the results of battlefield justice in his Chief Justice's Record of the Court of Justice of the reign of the High King Peter and his brother's and sisters' reign of Narnia (this was later known as the Chief Justice's Record of the Court of Justice of the Golden Age, as written by King Edmund the Just, Chief Justice of Narnia). The anicent records had been untouched by Jadis or her followers as they generally tended to avoid Cair Paravel during the reign of the Witch-Queen Jadis of Charn, fearing it and the four thrones it held. As the ancient Court of Justice records had been hidden in a small chamber off of the treasury, they had been safe and unnoticed by Jadis and her followers and unknown about by them as well.

 

Once Torrin's head was separated from his shoulders, Edmund bent and picked up the severed head of Torrin, the black dwarf and spoke the ritualistic words which he'd spoken many times before and would speak many more times again during the reign of his siblings and himself, “NARNIANS! Behold the head of a traitor!” while raising it as high as he possibly could. He held it up for several long moments to allow his people to see the severed head and cheer at the sight, for this was also part of the ritualistic activities that followed executions in Narnia. It gave him no pleasure to say these words and hear these cheers, but at the same time, he knew that his brothers' and sisters' realm, his realm, was once more safe from at least one traitor. “Let his death serve as a reminder of what awaits those who betray Narnia, Aslan and Narnia's rightful Kings and Queens. NARNIA AND ASLAN!” “NARNIA AND ASLAN!” The crowd roared back.

 

Handing the head to the lieutenant of the guards, he said, his voice formal and hard, now in Chief Justice mode, “Mount this traitor's head on a pike and place it on the battlements of Cair Paravel's walls as a warning to all those who would think to betray Narnia.”

 

Then he retreated back to the small antechamber and set himself to cleaning Ekinwynae off and calming down so that when he returned to the Cair proper, he was back to his usual self, well as much as he could be back to his usual self following an execution day. He was considering going out to his hunting lodge until sunset the day after the next sunrise but he also knew that it was not something that was feasible as there was to be a knighthood ceremony in two days time so he decided to, just this once, put off his usual hunting trip off for a few days. His presence was required at the knighthood ceremony, especially since the knight being inducted into the knighthood of Narnia was being inducted into Edmund's own order.

 

Therefore he had to perform a large part of the ceremony. He would need to prepare and focus on the words of the oath of the Noble Order of the Stone Table, the words with which Aslan had knighted Edmund and given him at that time to use when inducting others into the order as knights. The words ran though his mind easily, as he'd said them several times now, having knighted several Narnians and even a few Lone Islanders. The oath's words as spoken by Edmund when knighting new members of his order were only a few words different from the ones by which Aslan had knighted Edmund himself. Edmund had changed the words of his own oath of knighthood from “Protect your fellow Sovereigns always, even if it leads to your own death.” to “Protect the Four Sovereigns always, even if it leads to your death,” because the other knights of his Order were not Royal as he was, they were his subjects and so the words of the Order's knighthood Oath had to be adjusted in all future knighthood ceremonies. The oath his knights took was one that he now spoke in the quiet antechamber, sure of the fact that he was alone, for the time being, “Be without fear in the face of the enemies of Narnia. Be brave and upright that Aslan may love thee. Speak truthfully, always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard Narnia's helpless and do no wrong. Protect the Four Sovereigns always, even if it leads to your death. If the Sovereigns are no more, protect your fellow Narnians. Serve Narnia in the Name of Aslan, the Great Lion, Highest King of Narnia, Lord of the wood, Saviour of Narnia, Son of the Emperor-over-the-sea, Lord of us all. That is your oath. That is the oath of this order. Rise a knight of the Noble Order of the Stone Table.”

**Author's Note:**

> The knighthood oath Edmund speaks at the end of this chapter is taken, with a few adjustments for the world of Narnia, directly from the film, The Kingdom of Heaven directed by Ridley Scott.


End file.
